


On The Shore

by lenol



Category: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Genre: M/M, because there definitely needed to be one more ending, this is a second epilogue i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 19:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16001786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenol/pseuds/lenol
Summary: This leads off exactly where the book ended because Oliver deserves a more definite ending.





	On The Shore

**Author's Note:**

> don't @ me if u think this is bad lmao this was just for fun and to get me back into writing have fun & enjoy !!

For ten, fifteen minutes, I sit in my chair and let the information sink into my brain like lead. It makes me feel heavy, I am already expecting to be disappointed. But there is no way I misunderstood James’s message. I let it run through my head again and again. To give my tongue that heat to ask for help; Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead, For that I am a man, pray see me buried. I have to go. As soon as I jump out of my chair, the phone rings. The sound startles me, and I almost angrily stare at the caller ID. Filippa. She probably wants to know what’s in the letter. I don’t want to talk to her; need to digest the possibilities that just opened up to me. I can’t share this with anyone yet. 

I start shoving what little possessions I have into my backpack. It doesn’t take long to gather up all of my things. I haven’t been released long enough to actually have settled anywhere. While I scramble together everything that makes out my life, I realise how ready I am to go. Suddenly, I know that every minute with Meredith I have been waiting to do exactly what I’m doing now. I feel sorry for her, about leaving her again. Writing her a note, my initial plan, suddenly seems too cowardly, too little an effort to leave behind. Reluctantly, I pull out my phone and dial her number. It rings a few times; I forgot about the time difference. She must still be asleep. 

After what seems like a lifetime, I hear a drowsy voice. “Oliver? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” I glance at my watch on my night stand. It’s 7a.m. in Los Angeles. So much for the middle of the night. 

“Sorry I woke you up. I just wanted to tell you I have to leave. It’s not because of you, I just have to go.”

There is a pause at the other end of the line. “Are you okay? Did something happen?” 

I swallow. “Look, Meredith, I can’t stay with you anymore. I have to go. I’m sorry.” I don’t want to tell her about the letter. I don’t want to explain to her that this is the only thing that has the power of making me feel alive again. I am too riddled with grief to allow the possibility of being wrong, and I know what she will say. However, I do know I owe her some honesty, so I tell her about the verse. Pericles. Suddenly my favourite Shakespeare play of all time. 

“Oliver, what do you think this is? You know he’s dead, right? I need you to tell me that you know that. He’s been dead for years.” 

Her words sting, even now, they always do when I think them, and I think them a lot. “Did you hear what I -” “Yes I did, but this is the same bullshit from ten years ago. Don’t you think it’s time to stop at some point?” 

I am quiet while I shove my watch, my wallet, and my glasses into my bag. “James knew what I would think if I read the letter, Meredith, he wouldn’t be so cruel.”

She doesn’t answer for a while and I almost think she hung up when I hear her whisper, “He let you stay in prison for ten years.” I wish she had hung up. “That was because I asked him to.” I glance around the bedroom one last time, then check the bathroom. I have everything.  
“Oliver, I know you well enough to know I won’t change your mind, but please stay. You don’t have a car, it was … nice with us until now. You don’t even know where to go.” She doesn’t know about the beach. She doesn’t know about anything important. Ignoring the hurt in her voice, I take one last look around the room and stomp down the stairs. 

“I’m sorry, Meredith. I have to do this, you know it just as well as I do.” 

I try not to look back when I leave the house, but I can’t help but stop for a moment before I open the front door and step outside and wonder if what I’m doing is going to destroy the only good thing in my life. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter. James is the only one that matters. I made my decision ten years ago. I do feel guilty when I walk away from the house of the person who offered me a home, but Meredith knows she was always going to come in second if I had the choice. 

After walking for five minutes, I do realise that Meredith did have some points. I barely have any money and no idea how to get to California. But I have no time for doubt. My heart will shatter. 

\------

In the end, I end up taking a bus to my sister. I still don’t want to see my parents, and they probably don’t want to see me. Leah is excited to see me, but her joy considerably lessens when I tell her why I am here. We sit in the kitchen with a mug of steaming tea when I tell her about the letter and about the verse and about how this is my last hope. Leah looks doubtful. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? This sounds just like the dramatic shit you guys used to do and look where that got you.” I had told her everything at some point because I felt like I needed somebody from my family to not be completely alienated by me.

I shake my head vigorously. “I need to do this, Leah. You didn’t know James the way I did. I need to see him. ‘Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by’.” 

She sighs, but doesn’t argue. “I hope you’re right about this, Oliver. Please promise me you won’t .... do anything if you don’t find him. Okay?” 

My mouth forms a hard line, but I nod reluctantly. “Don’t worry. Also, can I borrow some money?” 

\------

She was generous, probably out of pity or because she wanted to make sure I’d be able to find my way back home if didn’t find what I was looking for. I was just grateful she had helped me to begin with. When we hugged goodbye, she whispered “Everything will be okay, Oliver” into my ear, and it almost sounded like she was crying. But her eyes were dry and determined when we parted. 

Even though I can afford a plane ticket with Leah’s money, I decide to take a Greyhound to California. I don’t want to spend all of my money on the first day, and it will be easier to navigate once I am in Cali. The first bus takes me to Eureka. It takes three days and we pass six states on the way to the west coast, but I barely notice my surroundings on the way. Sometimes, when the bus stops for a break, I stumble outside and manage to buy a cheap sandwich at the gas station we’re at. Sometimes I eat it, sometimes i throw it away. Most of the time I am in a doze, not sleeping but unaware of anything around me. I’m in a weird stupor and I constantly feel sick. I keep trying not to think about the only thing I can think of. Love is merely a madness. I almost feel like Shakespeare wrote these words to describe James and me and nobody else. Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. The only thing keeping me sane is my goal at the end of this journey. I don’t allow myself to think past the beach. Everything will begin there, I am sure. Meredith doesn’t call. 

The moment the bus passes the Eureka city-limit sign, the feeling in my body changes. If before it was a nervous sort of stupor, now it changes into anxious apprehension. I start imagining what will happen if James won’t wait for me on the beach. I almost throw up, but manage to concentrate on the seat in front of me and block out all the thoughts I had a minute ago. Grief still pours out of my heart as if I’ve never read the letter sometimes. It makes me feel sick. In these moments, I am almost angry with James for giving me hope. How cruel a thing to do to the person you love. 

In Eureka, I try to find a car rental who will rent a car to an excon without an address. It takes some time, but after I let them call Leah’s number who vouches for me, they reluctantly hand over the keys to a small Toyota. I haven’t driven in ages, but I am worried I’ll miss the road to the beach we were at years ago if I take another bus up the coast. I’ll have to rely on my memory. I know I should get a good night’s sleep before driving off, but my patience is wearing thin. I need to know. Need to have tried. I wish James would have stood in front of the prison gates when I was released, I wish he had stood there with his crooked smile and his sparkling eyes and kissed me, embraced me, told me he had missed me. I wish I didn’t have to go to him. But I will do this last deed for him, and if it kills me. 

\------

The scenery around me is beautiful, but nostalgia is the only reason I notice anything. Every single tree and rock along the road reminds me of James in some way, about something he said, or the way he smiled. The colours get a strange volume, the world seems to take its first breath after millennials. The huge trees that line the roads seem even more majestic than usually and the sky seems to be a brighter blue than it has been in years. Everything seems to be more quiet and peaceful than it ever has, and even I relax a little alongside the outside world. There are barely any cars on the road. I feel little, but I am at ease for the first time in ten years. 

A few times I miss the right turns, but I eventually make it on the road which I know will lead me to the beach we spend a night at 5 lives again. Almost unconsciously, I slow down until I seem to have stopped completely. All my nervousness and anxiety is back. Suddenly I know I can’t do this, and I start sweating. I have no idea what I was thinking. Licking my lips, I try to think of something to do. What are my options? I could turn around, go all the way back, and try to forget everything I have done in the past four days. Even thinking about that possibility makes me wince. I know I can do this. If only my foot on the gas pedal knew as well. 

I decide to take a ten minute break. Lighting one of the cigarettes from a pack I bought in Eureka before driving up north, I lean against the car and tell myself over and over that everything will be alright. The nicotine instantly calms me down a bit, and I quietly watch the smoke dissolve into the air. I know I don’t have a choice. My life will end or begin on the beach ahead of me, but if I don’t go I have already lost. 

Carelessly, I stub out my cigarette. I sigh as I get back behind the wheel. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. 

\------

My car is the only one in the parking lot as it comes to a halt. I try not to think anything of it. I did not expect a welcome committee here, but it doesn’t lower my apprehension either. I’m not in the mood to play hide-and-seek, and I don’t want to have to find out at which point I will stop looking for an illusion, a desperate hope. 

The beach is just as beautiful as I remember it. Sporadically, old, knobbly tree trunks scatter the white sand, washed white by the sea. The sound of the water quietly ebbs up and down on the border of my consciousness. I realise how much I missed this place. 

Without a grand plan, I start making my way towards the water. I yearn to touch the water, to feel the sand between my toes. Taking off my shoes a few feet away from the water, I look around the beach. I am completely alone. It is getting too late for visitors and a breeze that was comfortable during the day now starts to chill my bones. Wrapping my arms around my torso, I step into the water tentatively. It is freezing cold, but I close my eyes and smile anyway. In prison, you forget that things as vast as the ocean exist. 

I almost forget about James standing here at the end of the world. I have never felt more at home than here, all these years ago and now. Taking out another cigarette, I look around again. Nothing. Just the silence of the trees and the noise of the sea. My fingers tremble a little when I light my cigarette, if from panic or the cold I can’t tell. 

I stand in the water smoking when I feel as if I can make out a silhouette of a man in the corner of my eye. Turning my head a little, I can see that far, far away, a lone figure is standing on the beach, possibly watching me. I stand still and feel the person slowly approach me. I pretend I don’t notice. The fear in me is suddenly gushing past the dam I carefully built inside me on the way here. I am not prepared to meet James and I am not prepared to not meet him. Suddenly I wish I had never come. 

The figure keeps coming closer and I keep looking away. I don’t want to know who it is. I stare at my smouldering cigarette and flick away the ash and watch it dissolve in the salty water in front of me. How I wish that were me.  
When I can sense the person is only a few feet away from me and I can barely stand to stand still, he speaks. I can hear the smile in his voice. 

“I don’t really do this anymore, but do you have one of these for me?” 

I want to punch him. Not looking up, I slowly say, “On your own risk.”

“Oh, definitely. I wouldn’t want to hold anybody else responsible for my choices.”

Bracing myself, I look up into his grey eyes. They are almost as I remember them, just a little older. Without a word, I hold out my pack to James and he takes a cigarette. He has his own lighter. Suddenly speechless, I turn back towards the sea. I don’t know what he expects from this, what I expect from this. 

We stand like this for a while, shoulder to shoulder, while James smokes and I stare at nothing. When I finally open my mouth, James beats me to it. “ Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.” 

I turn to look at him properly for the first time in five years. I regard his face which looks tired and worn out and even more beautiful than I it used to be. He holds my gaze, a question seemingly in his eyes. 

I hesitate, open my mouth to say something, close it again. Then, after a minute, “I missed you.” I have nothing more to say right now. It feels too surreal to have him standing next to me. 

James turns fully towards me and looks at me for a moment. “I’m sorry”, I can hear him say through a sea of white noise filling my brain slowly but steadily. “Everything got too much. I couldn’t deal with all the people anymore.”

“You ass”, I hear myself mumble through a curtain of relief and anxiety. There are tears prickling in my eyes. Suddenly I feel unable to hold myself up for a second longer and I begin to sway. Before I can fall, James grips my arms and steadies me. The touch feels like more I can deal with. We slowly sit down, further away from the water so we don’t get wet. It takes everything I have not to lean against James. The thought almost makes me cry for real. 

After a few minutes of silence, I say “Why did you send me that letter?” 

James hesitates for a few seconds and before my brain can even begin to catch up, takes my hand in his. Alarmed, I turn to look at him, but when I open my mouth, he leans in and presses his lips to mine. 

It’s everything I’ve been waiting for. My body lets go of all the tension in the past years and finally, finally relaxes. It is a soft kiss, like two shy teenagers who don’t yet know what to do, lips slightly crushing against lips, unsure of where to go, but it is enough. After a few moments, we break apart, our foreheads still touching. Our breaths mingle into one, how they were always supposed to. I grab James’s neck and sob into his shoulder before frantically moving my head back to his face and kissing every spot I can reach. He still feels unreal, but he holds me and holds me and holds me. That is enough. We can talk about everything, our lives begin tonight at this beach. But for now, I need to mourn and come to rest and be resurrected again.


End file.
